Enter the Forest of Light 'n Dark Photo Contest!

FOREST OF LIGHT 'N DARK PHOTO CONTEST
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We are celebrating the opening of the new Fantasy Kaleidosope Gallery with a fun photo contest! Please submit a picture you took at either Enchanted (light) or Bewitched (dark), or you can submit one from each! We will be giving away prizes for each sim individually. They are:

FIRST PLACE: 5000L
SECOND PLACE: 3000L
THIRD PLACE: 1000L

Yes, that's right, you have the opportunity to win up to 10,000L if you enter pictures from both sims :) The winners will also be displayed in the gallery entrance for a while, then moved into the gallery as art on exhibit.
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You may submit as many pictures as you'd like. We are not judging based on how well your pictures are edited or processed, because we realize not everyone has the means to do that. We are looking more for originality, most magical, and most interesting.

Please submit the pictures either here in SL in a notecard labelled "Photo Contest Entry" as the title to Natalie Montagne (Nat Enchanted) OR to the Flickr Enchanted and Bewitched group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/enchantedelvenrealm/

Please be sure and label ALL entries "Photo Contest Entry" as the title either way you submit them. Also, don't forget to list your avie's full name. You may put a title or description with the photo if you'd like.
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We will accept contest submissions from now until Sunday, May 8. We will take a day or two to decide and announce the winners on Wednesday, May 11.

Please let Natalie Montagne know if you have any questions. Otherwise, enjoy!!

New Sim Joins the Enchanted Family!

I have some exciting news! Some of you may already know about the new addition to Enchanted, but I'd like to go ahead and make the announcement official :) We now have a new sim adjoined on the north side of Enchanted where the dark forest is located. The sim itelf is Elven Mist and it contains another wonderful forest built by Andrek Lowell called, Bewitched, formerly known as Bentham Forest. Lauren Bentham, who integrated her creations with Andrek's build, was the original owner of the sim. She decided to sell it and contacted me to see if I might be interested in purchasing it...and here we are :) If you've never visited this sim before, you are truly missing out! It is a haunted, dark forest full of beauty, whimsy, spooks and frights! In order to get the full effect of the sim, you need to put your environment to midnight at the entrance. I did a blog about Bentham Forest a while back, here is the link: http://nataliemontagne.blogspot.com/2010/09/bentham-forest-spooky-and-fun.html There is also a great youtube video about the sim: I hope you all are able to visit soon. When you arrive at the entrance, you'll be offered a landmark, notecard, url to the sim blog and a group invitation. Please come and enjoy!

Bentham Forest: Spooky and Fun!

Red eyes glowing at every turn!

Spooky, eerie, dark, scary...there are alot of words I could use to describe Lauren Bentham's haunted Bentham Forest. It's all these things, yet fun and whimsical! When you first arrive, you land in a small, wooden house with its own kind of charm. Inside is the opportunity to join the group or purchase some of the items displayed within the region. You also have the option to begin one of the quests the Forest offers. Once you get all the way through and complete the quest/quests, you receive a reward.


I think my favorite thing about the forest is the way everything glows at every turn, yet it's dark enough to achieve its goal of complete spookiness, hehe. Yes, environment designer extraordinaire Andrek Lowell has done it again! He is also the creator responsible for much of the beauty found in Chakryn Forest, which I wrote about in a past blog. The glowing effect covering the whole forest reminds me of the night scenes in Avatar's Pandora, it's truly beautiful. Not only do alot of the plants have a glowing effect (especially the mushrooms), but there are also colorful lights here and there all over the area, along with "moonbeams" filtering through the abundant trees. Another thing that glows are the bright red, evil eyes that stare at you from among the dark trees. I have not seen so many mushrooms in my life, and I don't mean just mushrooms, but MUSHROOMS of all shapes and sizes. I also found a pretty cave with brightly lit and colored crystals aglow. The entire sim was full of dead, dark trees and ruins either lying in the creek or partially standing. As I said before, the forest did have some fun and whimsical features and those include the dark trees with faces, the big mushrooms with witch faces, and many other things. Make sure you set your environment on midnight (try it on sunrise too...to see alot of the details) and go explore this wonderful haunted forest if you haven't already, there's nothing like it in all of Second Life!

I took all the pictures within this post (except the last one) with my environment on midnight so you could see the glowing effects. Be sure to click the pictures to enlarge them.

The little, wooden house which is the landing point. Notice the red eyes underneath.

Gorgeous glowing effect surrounding the creek waters.

Mushrooms of all shapes and sized cover the sim. Notice the GIANT ones!

These are the crystals I found in the cave I explored.

Who is that with the big, pointy nose? lol

This is what the sim looks like when the environment is set to sunrise.

Lauren Bentham also owns Enchanted Wonderland Forest within Fae Fantasy Forest. I did an earlier post that showed quite a bit of this region. Here is the link: http://nataliemontagne.blogspot.com/2010/07/designer-focus-kira-lavendel-of.html. All these areas are within Bentham Isles.

Clothes: Anfaela by Kira Lavendel of MysticHope Designs

Boots: Amazon Boot in brown by Elvina Ewing of Caverna Obscura

Elf Ears: ICED Elf Ears with diamond piercings by Scarlet Chandrayaan

Skin: Lyla in Pale Floral by Emilia Redgrave of Redgrave

Hair: DrLife Healthy Hair in Yi-bang Platinum by Leena Ying